Barn Finds - Hidden Hot Rod Treasures

Written
by
Marlan Davis
on October 1, 2007 Contrary to what some people think, there are still hidden hot rod treasures out there just waiting to be discovered. We scoured the country and undearthed survivors, long-hidden projects and historical hot rods.

The Cragar-laden 'Cuda was found in a barn in Kentucky where it had sat untouched after the trans blew up in the early '80s. Freiburger found it on eBay Motors by searching "barn find" when looking for a cover car for this month's issue. He couldn't pass it up.>

Call 'em barn finds. Call 'em survivors. Whatever, we just refer to the vehicles shown on the next 16 pages as bitchin' hot rods, finally dug out of obscurity for at least enough time to capture them in full photographic glory. Some of them are true barn finds, unearthed after decades of neglect and outright memory loss. Others are still in the care of their original owners or builders but haven't seen the light of day for years. Some are historical, others simply have great sentimental value, a few are running in anger like they used to, and others may never turn a tire under their own power again, but the overall connection is that they are all cool. We hope you enjoy them, and we encourage readers to send us your barn finds, hidden treasures, and survivors. 'Cause this stuff is neat!

Skip Kent's Hemi DeuceThis hot rod story tells itself: a classic '32 highboy covered for 40 years while the kids grow up, tucked away in the back of the barn behind the old tractor and the primered '34 sedan, concealed under an endless series of shrouds. Then one day you realize your boys aren't boys anymore. They are men with their own families. With some coaxing from your lifelong friend Stretch and prodding by your sons Emmett and J.D., you're convinced to fire up that Hemi one more time, "just to hear it run," they say. But you know it means much more than that. Overnight the full-on thrash begins . . . and decades flash before your eyes.

Standing in the pits after the car's first quarter-mile pass in 40 years, Skip Kent's youngest son J.D. candidly exclaims, "I wasn't even born when Dad quit racing, and to have the opportunity to run this car down a strip again, you can't describe the feeling. Especially in a car that Dad raced 40 years ago. I stepped into the exact same car that Dad stepped out of!"

With his big brother Emmett, nervous and excited, rushing over to congratulate him, J.D. continues, "Looking at the controls you think it's a piece of cake. There isn't much to do, but everything happens in a big hurry." Joining the family, Skip recounts his first pass down the strip in the purple coupe. "I hit about 115 mph and I could see the plexiglass bow back in on me, and I kept going for it. I went through the traps and the damn windshield came back in my face. It shattered, but I had that old green crash helmet on. It broke my nose. All I could think was to shut her down and get it off to the side. So I ran it the rest of the season without a windshield."

Anyone can see that the Deuce is full-on old-school. As two college kids living in Bozeman in 1955, original builders Denny Perry and Dick Ettinger used every trick in the book including sheetmetal floorboards, an aluminum dash, and a pressurized Moon tank to reduce the coupe to fighting weight. The purple highboy is easily identified by the hand-painted rendition of Clay Smith's "Mr. Horsepower" logo applied by Ray Brooks after Skip purchased the car in 1961. For four years Skip campaigned a 392 Chrysler Hemi boasting six Stromberg 97s and Jahns high-compression pistons, hooking the horsepower to the tarmac through a bulletproof LaSalle tranny and a 4.11:1 rearend. He added the rose-colored Plexiglas windows, and for the perfect stance he set the highboy atop a pair of American Racing magnesium wheels up front and chrome steelies out back.

Skip laughs as he explains how the race car received its nickname. "We had a motor supply in town with a machine shop, and there was a gentleman whose name was Ben. He was quite an accomplished machinist: He did everything including crankshaft grinding and manifold planing. He did it all. Us pimply-faced hot rod kids would keep dragging our worn-out junk in there to try to get him to fix it. He was a nice guy, but he just hated us kids. Of course we never had any money. So when this car finally got rolling we named the car after him-Benny."

By the summer of 1965, Skip was contemplating racing on a more serious level, but when he watched his newborn son Emmett being carried through the pits by his mother the responsibility of fatherhood took hold. He says, "I looked at the car. Here I am without a steady source of income and I thought to myself, 'You know, I need to make a decision here. Am I going to have superchargers and roller camshafts or am I going to buy Pablum and diapers?' Well, obviously you know how it went. The car went on the trailer in August of '65 and that was the last time it ever ran. But somehow, and in all honesty I don't know how, I managed to keep it all these years."

Skip recounts, "It was always the kids' dream to hear it run, but my response was always no." But last spring his mood changed. Prompted by his two sons and good friend Bob "Stretch" Stredwick, they rolled Benny out of the barn and took him to Stretch's garage for an overhaul. Emmett jumped on the electrical while J.D. handled flushing out all the ancient fluids and replacing all the plumbing. With cousin Kevin Kent running parts, Skip and Stretch kept the technical information flowing. Over the next two weeks all the old stories spilled out onto the garage floor, as the Deuce was taken apart and reassembled.

Then it came time to fire the healthy 392. Oh, what a sound, the perfect rumble of an uncorked Hemi echoing in the evening stillness. Before the Father's Day debut at a private car show, Benny received some final touches including a power wash and fresh coat of wax. "All the preparation and all the things we did were probably some of the best two weeks of my life. There was a real camaraderie," recalls Stretch. Describing Benny's unveiling to the local hot rod crowd: "The interesting thing that happened that day was when we got the car out-there were guys who had tears in their eyes when they saw it!"- Jeffrey Conger

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Dennis Sisco's Blue RacerFate and luck: They determine which cars somehow manage to survive to the present day just as much as fame, historical importance, or commercial value. This Model A, virtually unknown until now but a true slice of hot rod Americana just the same, belongs to Dennis Sisco of West Branch, Michigan. The retired Detroit-area radio broadcaster recently purchased it from his rodding buddy Dave Crain, who found the car in 2005. It was resting on its framerails under a carport where it had been left to rot sometime in the late '60s. While the harsh Detroit winters have not been kind to the '31 Ford roadster, Dennis intends to restore the car to its original state if he can. Their research has uncovered the following.

The rod was originally built by Ed Burns in 1954, using a '31 roadster body channeled over Deuce rails, with Guide headlamps and what appear to be Nash taillamps. True to its period, the roadster sported cycle fenders, a handmade aluminum dash with full instruments, and a late-model Ford steering wheel. The upholstery was pleated red and white plastic. A chromed '34 axle with split wishbones and '40 Ford brakes carried the front, with a '39 Mercury gearbox and rear axle rounding out the package. With a flathead Merc V-8-legend has it an exceptionally strong one-the roadster was raced on Eckles Road and at Motor City Dragway by Ed Burns and its next owner, Loren McCombs of Dearborn, who purchased the rod in 1959. In Loren's hands the car evolved into a full-time NHRA class racer, running in the B/Street Roadster category with an unlikely powertrain combination even for the early '60s: a Hilborn-injected Ford Y-block with a Mercury three-speed overdrive trans. The car won its class at both the '64 Nationals at Indy and the '66 Springnationals at Bristol. The killer Y-block, built by Motown engine guru Leo Gonzalez, was bored and stroked to 327 ci. Loren remembers that it had so much compression it would barely rotate, so he mounted the largest battery he could find in the trunk. But unfortunately that engine has long since disappeared, and accurately replicating it is just one of the many obstacles Dennis faces in restoring the car to its original state. For example, just where does one locate a decent set of Hilborn injectors for a Y-block Ford? -Bill McGui

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It's hard to belive that historically significant muscle still comes out of barns. You'd die just to find a real Six-Barrel Superbird, much less a car that Chrysler gave away to Richard Petty. All the paint and panels are original. Before the car was stripped, the quarter -panels were sketched on CAD to ensure that the lettering can be redone exactly as it was.>

Steve Atwell's Petty Superbird & Sammy Miller Rocket CarOur friend Steve Atwell is a world-renowned Hemi race-car guy, but in his midlife crisis he's starting to expand his horizons. We guess his new Prudhomme '70 Cuda Funny Car is technically a Hemi car, but he also just bought a Ford lightweight. And even though Steve is technically a Dodge guy, he hasn't been able to pass up a few good Plymouths that came his way. One of them is this interesting Superbird.

When Steve got the call that there was a 'Bird up in Lansing, Michigan, that had been in a garage since 1976, he thought he probably needed it-but knew for sure when he found out it was a 440+6 car with a Pistol Grip four-speed and the Super Track Pak option. The owner had picked it up for $2,500, driven it for a while, then parked it.

Steve bought the thing after seeing it stuffed in the garage, but when it got home, he wondered why "Daytona Winner" was hand-lettered on both quarters. It clearly wasn't a NASCAR race car. The answer came when Mopar Performance's Dave Hakim recognized it. There was also photographic confirmation from Larry Rathgeb, the lead engineer on the Chrysler winged-car program. This was the Superbird that Chrysler awarded to team owner Richard Petty after Pete Hamilton won the '70 Daytona 500 in the No. 40 Superbird. All signs point to the conclusion that Petty wrapped up the publicity photos with the car, then asked Chrysler to sell the car and hand over the cash. Steve has already stripped it for a full restoration.

The wackiest car in the entire Steve Atwell collection is this one: the Slammin' Sammy Miller Spirit of '76 Mustang II rocket Funny Car. Miller is best known for his '78 Vega Vanishing Point rocket car that ran the first 300-mph dragstrip pass, and for his world- record 3.54-second, 386-mph quarter-mile run at Santa Pod in England in 1984 after rocket cars were banned by American sanctioning bodies. (Kitty O'Neil ran the quarter in 3.235 at 412 mph in a rocket dragster at El Mirage dry lake, not a recognized dragstrip; Miller himself ran 396 at Bonneville according to www.dragracingonline.com). He also had a number of other cars, including the Oxygen rocket dragster that ran 247 mph on skis over an eighth-mile on a frozen lake. Miller died in 2002, but miraculously, not as a result of his outrageous racing exploits.

What makes the Spirit of '76 notable is that it is credited as being the first rocket-powered Funny Car; previous rocket cars were dragsters. The 90-pound rocket with 10,000 pounds of thrust that powers the Mustang II Funny Car is reportedly the same engine that came out of the second Pollution Packer dragster. Miller ran the car in the low 5s at 290-plus mph before moving on to the Vega Vanishing Point cars. The Mustang was sold to Funny Car racer Fred Goeske, who campaigned it as the Chicago Patrol car with driver Tom Anderson. It was found in as-raced condition.

Steve doesn't own anything he can't drive. So imagine the future for this rare find -David Freiburger

Rick Voegelin's Super Mod CamaroIn 1974, Car Craft staffer Rick Voegelin built his Super Modified Camaro to back up the magazine's editorial campaign for a heads-up Sportsman eliminator. Pro Modified, as CC called it, was to be a working man's Pro Stock, racing at 10 pounds per cubic inch with unported cylinder heads, steel bodies, and 10.5-inch-wide tires to contain costs. NHRA bought the concept but not the eliminator, introducing the A/Super Modified class in Modified Eliminator at the start of the 1975 season.

Originally thrown together in 30 days and mirroring the antiestablishment insouciance of its builder, Rick's '67 Camaro was the antithesis of the slick magazine project car. Never a threat for a Best Appearing award, it raced in primer and white gelcoat until a friend of a friend took pity and squirted a $75 Lucerne Blue paint job on it in his driveway. But the car had inner beauty: Rick worked his connections with racers and manufacturers unmercifully, as the Camaro received torsion-bar transmissions, short-stroke crankshafts from Chevy's Can-Am program, and palletloads of other trick parts. Editor Rick, future ex-wife Kay, and fellow CC staffer Norman Mayersohn barnstormed the Left Coast with the Camaro for eight seasons, with regular pilgrimages to the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. Highlights included a pair of NHRA Division VII Modified titles, eight NHRA national records, and runner-up finishes at the '76 Winternationals and '78 World Finals. Lowlights included setting the car on fire on the return road at Orange County and oiling down Fremont Raceway twice in one day. NHRA eventually added more Super Mod classes, and the Camaro raced in all of them with a variety of small-block and big-block V-8s. For its final combination the Camaro was outfitted with a 90-degree Chevy V-6 to compete in the sparsely populated K/Gas class.

In October 1982, NHRA ignominiously pulled the plug on Modified Eliminator. But instead of chaining himself to the Christmas Tree in protest, Rick simply loaded up the Camaro and hauled it home. It has remained there ever since, a refuge for spiders and field mice, surrounded in its final resting place by racks of engines, transmissions, and other obsolete parts. These days Rick is a bigshot PR professional with high-end clients including the Corvette LeMans megateam. Meanwhile, not once has he considered selling off the blue Camaro. In the barn it will stay. "Over the years, I've thought about turning it into an autocross car, bracket racing it, putting it back on the street, or restoring it," says Rick. "But lying on a cold concrete floor doesn't have the same appeal that it did when I was 25." -Bill McGuire

Al Kirschenbaum's '70 Plymouth 'Cuda In the mid-'70s, Car Craft came up with the idea of resurrecting basic $400 junkyard musclecar bodies to build what it called a "contemporary all-American GT." (Think of it as early Pro Touring.) With the assistance of his brother Steve, Al Kirschenbaum, a Brooklyn, New York native (and Petersen employee), built the Mopar, a '70 Plymouth Cuda, "East Coast style." It was paired against a California-style '67 Camaro put together by Norm Mayersohn. The Mopar received a 360 small-block, a 727 TorqueFlite, and 2.93:1, 831/44-inch Sure Grip rearend, plus suspension enhancements. It ran in the July, Aug., Sept., and Oct. '76 issues of Car Craft before finally being (more or less) wrapped up in the Sept. '76 edition. Still owned today by Al, the car remained a daily driver through the late '80s before being parked. As Al puts it, "I bought my current California big house and devoted my efforts to it-but the car was too cool to sell." He eventually intends to restore it to its original 440 four-barrel configuration. "It will be worth more that way. I have all the parts, as well as a lot of spare OE stuff, even a rare power-window switch." -Marlan Davis

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The car had the flares and fixed headlights when he got it, but Mike Kirton added the sidepipes and meatballs. He's probably shredding on the thing as you read this.>

Mike Kirton's '69 CorvetteStuntman and moviemaker Mike Kirton was approached by a wealthy farmer who wanted him to direct an infomercial and offered a Corvette in exchange for his services. The guy got the Vette in a trade 11 years earlier and stuck it in a storage container on the farm, having never even driven it, and couldn't even remember what color it was or which of the 62 containers that littered his farm the car was stored in. Mike said, "Container number 32 was the lucky dog." He unburied the 350/four-speed car, trailered it to a shop where it got a new brake caliper, a carb, and a battery, and it fired right up. Since then, Mike has added Vette Brakes suspension and is beating the snot out of the car. He plans on bringing it to Drag Week(tm) as well as any other races he can get to, including Bonneville, open road races, and even some drifting. Spend five seconds on the phone with the guy and you'll learn he has the energy to do it. -Rob Kinnan

Mike Formick's '67 Camaro Freiburger is convinced that the '70s look is coming back, and based on the reaction to Mike Formick's '67 Camaro on this year's Power Tour(r), he might be right. Mike's car is no pseudo-retro job-it's the real deal. Those lace stripes were shot in the early '70s by the car's original owner, and everything else on the car-except the drivetrain-is just like it was when the car was street-raced three decades ago. The RS/SS 350ci, four-speed car was "a bit of a legend in our town," says Mike, who lives in Streetsboro, Ohio. The Camaro went through two owners before being stuffed in a barn. When it became available, Mike was in the right place at the right time and snapped up the car. He and a buddy rescued it from the barn it had been living in for 25 years, washed it and polished the dish mags, and what you see here is exactly what it looked like. Mike has since put a 10.0:1 496 in it with the original four-speed, stuck a set of 3.08s in the 12-bolt, and hit the road for Power Tour(r).

"The car had 49,000 original miles and hadn't seen rain in over 25 years, and it deteriorated a little bit on the Tour, but it was worth it. My dad and I had a blast," Mike tells us. -Rob Kinnan

Alexander Brothers '66 BarracudaThe OE automakers have used high-profile show cars for years as a way to attract attention to their brand. Though never destined for production, these one-offs suck people into the new-car displays and, hopefully, leave them with a good impression of the latest new cars. Back in 1966, Plymouth's exhibit folks worked with the styling department to pen a relatively subdued (for the day) but still hot-looking version of their new Barracuda for the show circuit. Rather than build it themselves, they enlisted the famous Alexander Brothers, Larry and Mike, and had the car built at the brothers' Detroit-area shop. The guys did a lot of metalwork to the car, including enlarging the rear wheelwells, adding a custom side exhaust that dumps in front of the rear tires, rounding all the corners, pancaking the hood, and creating ahead-of-their-time custom door handles with recessed grip pockets. A clear plastic hood bubble showed the engine (which had fake Weber stacks), and the paint was a bright candy orange. The car was turned into a two-seater with a spare Ansen wheel and tire mounted behind the front seats.

The car's debut was the Buffalo Auto Show in January 1966 and it made the show circuit that year, but we don't have much information on where it went from there. It appears to have lived in Michigan City, Indiana, then finally ended up in Iowa, where Mike Alexander (not "Jr." but son of the original Mike) found it in 2001. Mike was by then working at Metalcrafters in Southern California and was flipping through Hemmings Motor News when he ran across a classified ad for a "'66 Barracuda one-of-a-kind custom show car by Alexander Brothers." Mike called his dad, who advised him, "That's one you might not want to take on." The younger Alexander didn't listen, and now, six years later, the car is fully restored to the former beauty it once was. Keep it in the family, they say. -Rob Kinnan

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Tim Holland says; "The car is amazingly complete and original but in pretty rough condition. Platt is being very helpful with the restoration and has a great memory for the smallest details." Dig the original Hilborn Ford FE wedge injection manifold, big-tube Doug Thorley headers, and fiberglass bucket seat. All are original to the car. Stop drooling!>

Hubert Platt's FalconWe don't have much background information on this last-minute entry, but that's not a big deal because altered-wheelbase Funny Car fanatics and drag race historians alike will instantly recognize the man as Ford drag race legend Hubert Platt and the faded blue Falcon as his 1965 match racer, the Georgia Shaker III. Yes, "Hugh Baby" is alive and well and so is the former FX stormer, which was recently tugged from a barn by Tim Holland of Lawrenceville, Georgia. Steeped in drag racing history-and featured on the covers of the June '65 issue of Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazine and the Nov. '65 issue of Drag Racing magazine-Hubert's altered-wheelbase Funny Falcon was a solid 9.90/140-mph performer in its day and made life very difficult for the Mopar factory Hemi cars despite being powered by an "obsolete" High-Riser 427 wedge. How the car came to be stashed away nearly untouched for four decades is a story we've got to research. For now, let's just digest the quarter-mile-deep patina of this astonishing barn find and hope the planned restoration is complete soon. Can you smell the rosin? -Steve Magnante

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The wagon was a solid but frayed roller when Mike Volz got it. The silver highlights and War Axe logos were added later. At some point before selling the car around 1967, Ron Mandella upgraded the factory steel nose with an aluminum replacement, but it's gone now.>

Mandella's '63 Max Wedge WagonMike Volz of Olympia, Washington, made the discovery of a lifetime by following leads about "some old Mopar station wagon race car." The mystery wagon turned out to be one of only three factory-built Max Wedge station wagons sold in 1963 (two Plymouths, one Dodge). Amazingly, the plus-size body style was what spooked everybody else away. Originally equipped with a low-compression 11.0:1 426 Max Wedge, pushbutton 727 TorqueFlite, AM radio, heater, and steel front end, this six-passenger Belvedere long-roof was originally sold new by the legendary Milne Brothers Chrysler-Plymouth of Pasadena, California, to a young racer by the name of Ron Mandella. Though Ron recently passed away, his brother Phil Mandella-proprietor of PM Race Cars-says Ron campaigned it extensively in NHRA A/SA competition, winning the Indy Nationals in 1964 with a 12.99/108.04 run (he runner-upped there in 1963). When he wasn't chasing national gold, Phil tells us Ron often drove the cross-rammed beast on the street: "He'd be lined up against Dyno Don's 409 Chevy on Colorado Boulevard or Rivergrade Road, then he'd deliver flowers for my parents' flower shop with it the next morning." Today the car is headed for a total restoration back to the way it was when Ron Mandella raced it in the early '60s, complete with hand-brushed lettering, chrome reverse rims, and fenderwell headers. -Steve Magnante

Williams Brothers '28 Roadster "I don't really own this car. It will always be the Williams Brothers car. I'm simply the caretaker for now."

That's Tom McIntyre describing his stewardship of the most unbelievable barn find we've seen in a long time. Tom's incredible collection includes such drool-inducing rods as the Penske/Donahue '68 Camaro Trans Am race car, the Mickey Thompson- built, Junior Johnson-driven '63 Corvette that was the very first vehicle to get Chevy's NASCAR Mystery Motor, and much more. But as good as those cars are, our favorite is the Williams Brothers Model A. The car appeared in the Dec. '54 HOT ROD after it had destroyed the B/Roadster record at Bonneville with a speed of 159 mph-coincidentally the same number painted on the car. It also did some drag racing and hill climbs, but in '56 they put it away. The car sat in the Williams Brothers shop untouched for 50 years until Tom found it, 100 percent original including the 1956 air in its Firestone Speedway tires and 50 years of accumulated dust on the surface.

Comparing vintage HOT ROD photos to the real thing half a century later reveals not one bit of difference. The residue from masking tape that secured the tonneau to the cowl is still there. The taillight harness that was used when the car was being flat-towed is still curled up behind the seat. Even the water pump belt on the 250ci '54 Dodge Red Ram Hemi is flipped over, as it did every time Ron Williams would zing it up in the revs. Amazing.

Tom has no plans to restore it, drive it, or do anything but let his friends marvel at the history. And we're glad. -Rob Kinnan

Budd Davisson's Model A"All the nuts and bolts are the same," says Budd Davisson. "Flying is just hot rodding with a third dimension added."

Today Budd is a top aviation writer and photographer who has flown nearly every interesting aircraft in existence and an accomplished novelist as well. But as a teenager in the '50s, he did some of his first flying on the ground-with a Flathead V-8-powered Model A roadster he built himself, starting the project when he was just 15. When he took to the skies his hot rod remained behind, stowed away in the family workshop for over four decades. Now after all these years he has revisited his rod and is prepping it for a return flight, using many of the very same tools that he first used to construct it, including a picking hammer he's owned since he was 12. For Budd, growing up in rural Nebraska in the '50s, tools and machines were part of daily life. "First you learned how to walk, then you learned how to weld, then you learned how to talk," he remembers. Budd bought the tube front axle ('37 Ford V8-60) at a junkyard for $1.50, then took it home wired to the handlebars of his bicycle. Speed parts for the roadster were purchased at Bill Smith's shop in Lincoln, back when Speedy Bill was barely more than a boy himself. The seats in Budd's car are aircraft surplus from a BT-13 Vultee trainer, while he fabricated the header pipes from bedsteads.

"I found among other things, when I started the rebuilding process, that I was an unbelievably crude craftsman when a teenager," Budd writes. "For one thing, it looked as if I didn't own a drill, because every hole was cut with a torch." So this latest project on the roadster might be considered equal parts restoration and completion-putting everything right this time around. The souped-up flathead V-8 stays along with the Ford V-8 driveline, and the body will remain channeled, as it was when Budd first built the low-slung flyer. All the rod's original character will be carefully preserved when the car makes its re-debut, which should be any day now, Budd hopes. To read the full saga of the roadster, told as only Budd can, or to check out his novels and aviation stories, visit his Web site at www. airbum.com. -Bill McGuire